History holds a lesson about the relevance of monarchy

In these anti-colonial times, Nigel Biggar (“Democracy is the crowning glory of monarchy”, 23/10) presents some inconvenient truths about the British monarchy and its continuing relevance to Australian society.

Today’s anti-slavery advocates ignore the fact that it was under the monarchy that the Brits led the Western world towards the abolition of slavery and later were the Western world’s champion of the emancipation of women.

Biggar makes the important point that the value of the monarchy that was limited by the Magna Carta is that it stands apart from the parliament, emphasising that the popular majority of the voting public is no guarantee of wisdom or justice.

Lidia Thorpe’s freedom to indulge in her tiresome parliamentary antics is an example of the voting public’s lack of wisdom, which is a fault of our democratically elected parliament, not the Crown.

John Bell, Heidelberg Heights, Vic

Barring the odd beheading, monarchies are pretty stable things and, as Nigel Biggar points out, they mostly oversee successful ­democracies. They’re thus not an altogether silly choice for a head of state.

And when you do what Australia does and timeshare a monarch, they’re also a real bargain.

However, locally we’ve a nagging angst over being stuck with the British version.

So, why not widen the field? There are some 43 monarchs around the globe to select from. Sticking with the timeshare model, we could call tenders for, say, 10 years.

Brian Haisman, Winmalee, NSW

In his defence of the monarchy, Nigel Biggar claims that political health needs a mixed constitution, not a purely democratic one. He makes the obvious point that the will of a popular majority is no guarantee of wisdom or justice.

But Biggar’s central point, that the monarch can deliver such a guarantee is highly contentious. Indeed, it’s not far removed from Pope Pius 1X’s doctrine of papal infallibility.

Charles III gives every impression he wants to leave his mark and we see him unwisely wading into divisive climate matters. Any guaranteed wisdom here? However, a great uncle of Charles, the Nazi sympathiser ­Edward V111, shatters Biggar’s central arguments. Britain and the rest of the democratic world can be truly thankful for the Wallis Simpson affair and his subsequent abdication.

Bob Miller, Leederville, WA

I wonder what makes Lidia Thorpe tick when she howls abuse at the representative of the very nation that established the foundations of democracy, technological progress, economic growth and high living standards that she and the great majority of Australians enjoy today (“Dutton calls on Thorpe to resign after royal ­tirade”, 23/10).

That some Australians require an uplift in living standards is no reason to dismantle the whole system or to severely compromise its integrity through ridiculous concepts like treaties and reparation payments, or special, non-democratic rights for the Indigenous population as espoused by Thorpe, the Greens and other ­Aboriginal activists.

The alternative pathway of maintaining the current system but making real, pragmatic improvements, as espoused by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, is by far the superior option.

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic

Enough has probably been discussed about the cowardly act performed by the self-centred, publicity-seeking Senator Lidia Thorpe and the cohort which is happy to sit back and encourage her to perform these outrageous protests.

Without a doubt, she is acting most inappropriately for an MP and is shunning the key points of the oath she swore when she ­became a member of the Senate.

I am totally amazed that there are no protocols in place for bringing Thorpe to account for how she behaved. Her behaviour just continues to get worse because she knows that there are very few sanctions open to the parliament to enforce, and there is obviously a deep reluctance to enforce those sanctions that are available.

I believe that our federal parliament is a toothless tiger. In no other workplace would this behaviour be tolerated, yet it is tolerated at the highest level of employment.

Peter D. Surkitt, Sandringham, Vic